Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM (24 May 1870 – 11 September 1950) was a prominent South African and Commonwealth statesman and military leader.
Immediately, commandos armed with German rifles and artillery and trained by the best European officers, marched into Natal and the Cape Colony.
He wrote dispatches to generals, published propaganda, organised logistics, and liaised with Transvaal diplomats in Europe.
The train carrying Smuts, his soldiers, and all the Transvaal's gold was the last to leave Pretoria before the town fell, only hours later, to the British Army.
Gradually, the British built a system of forts, internment camps, and armed patrols, and divided the country with barbed wire and trenches.
Botha and Smuts decided that they had greatly underestimated the resolve of the British politicians, and sent a telegram to Kruger to ask for his advice.
He had escaped capture by the British no fewer than a dozen times, and his forces rendezvoused on the border after a month, with only 240 men left.
It did so when they encountered a cavalry squadron at camp, and ambushed them, taking their horses, food, uniforms, guns, ammunition, and luxuries, raising the spirits of the men.
Despite their success at distracting and disrupting, hardly a single local nationalist Afrikaner took up arms against the British, and Smuts realised that these small raids would succeed in achieving such a grand objective.
He decided to launch a final attack, to bring the British back to the negotiating table, and to force an agreement in favor of the Boers.
The Boer commandos knew that President Steyn, General de Wet, Hertzog, and the 27 other Free State delegates would rather fight to the death than sign a treaty of surrender.
Francis William Reitz, tabled a compromise, ending the war, allowing the two republics limited sovereignty, and calling for slimmed-down delegations to meet in Pretoria to negotiate with the British.
Thus, the Transvaal needed to buy time, with smaller parties involved, to negotiate fully with the Free State representatives.
On 31 May 1902, the Treaty of Vereeniging, a document that was mostly written by Smuts and Lord Kitchener on their own, was signed by representatives of the United Kingdom, the Orange Free State, and the South African Republic.
This provided for the end of hostilities and eventual self-government to the Transvaal (South African Republic) and the Orange Free State as British colonies.